


Hyetal

by Findarato



Series: Encounters [4]
Category: Hakuouki
Genre: Emotional Porn, M/M, more implied than anything - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 17:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4400879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findarato/pseuds/Findarato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I’m beginning to think you have ulterior motives,” he mutters as he drinks some more, scrunching his headband between his fingers. Though he’s nowhere near drunk, his senses are everywhere, scattering and latching on to things like how the decorations on the walls are a really annoying shade of red, and the only calm thing in this room is Saitou, and how he smells like rain.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hyetal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Riana1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riana1/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** Hakuouki belongs to Otomate and IF/DF. Art is the creation of Kazuki Yone.  
>  **Spoilers:** Saitou’s route in Reimeiroku, general spoilers for the Reimeiroku anime  
>  **Timeframe:** Sort of a missing scene.  
>  **A/N:** There was originally a prompt, but I got nowhere with it, and now it’s just Shinpachi/Saitou. THIS WAS HARD TO WRITE. HARDER THAN ANYTHING ELSE I’VE WRITTEN SO FAR. I had three pages and then I deleted all of it after being stuck for like…a month, and rewrote it. I have never written Shinpachi before and it’s interesting, but he’s a little tough for me.

**_Hyetal_ **

It’s fitting that is rains right now. The skies disapprove of this as much as he does. As he lies in the mud, staring up at Saitou, it’s…a strange mixture of feelings. On one hand, he wants to stagger back to headquarters and give everyone a piece of his mind. One the other hand, he could lie here for a while, rain getting in his eyes, as Saitou stands over him, silent and watchful.

There’s so much more he wants to say. Yell. Do.

How is Saitou so passive and dangerous at the same time? Like…a quiet sort of deadly. His stance is perfect, a mirror of most people, and Shinpachi has never seen it waver. Not to mention only Saitou can pull off looking drenched that well.

Like damn.

Even though he’s imaging at the same time hitting Saitou, he can’t picture how it would really go. Something short of impossible and even if it did happen, the results would likely be him running for his life. He’s aware the Ibuki is sort of…staring at both of them, and Kondou is back in Shimabara, but he almost couldn’t care. 

Saitou extends his hand out; rain drips from his fingers, heavier than the drop that came directly from the sky.

If it were anyone else, someone he hasn’t known for years, he would’ve slapped their hand away. 

However, this is Saitou.

He takes that hand, and lets the other pull him up.

Strange how this almost like a more intense sparring session, even more intense than how Saitou and Souji go at it. Even as he stands, his side protests and he replays just how Saitou took him down, like that.

He could’ve been killed.

Or if Saitou hadn’t been that fast, Shinpachi might’ve killed him. Cleaved his skull, or cut right through a shoulder and reaching muscle and bone.

He shakes his head as it all hits him, how his anger got the best of things. His temper is quick—in both ways. Quick in being instigated, and quick in its cooling. There’s probably not a single man in the Shinsengumi that Shinpachi couldn’t get along with. Some he couldn’t stand as much as others, but…they were all samurai. They could do this. Besides, you get a drink or two into any man and they’d usually be amicable and there’s always some common ground to be found.

Maybe that’s why it irks him that Serizawa had to die the way he did. 

Nevertheless, it also irks him that they left him out of it all. 

“Shall we go back?” It doesn’t even sound like Saitou has raised his voice, to be heard above the storm. Some people, you simply got used to listening for, the softer tones that pushed through the louder sounds.

“Yeah.” He shakes water out of his face, as he sheathes his sword.

He’ll go back, all right. Maybe drink. Maybe rant a little.

**.**

Things like this aren’t anything new. Climbing the ranks, settling arguments. Except there was the rule about no private fights. And now that he thinks about it, was this really even a private fight? He wasn’t even personally mad at Saitou. He’s…mad about the whole situation. About being left out.

He curses a little when he takes his top off to inspect his injury; this is going to bruise terribly and hurt for days, isn’t it. Peeved, he looks over at Saitou, who is wringing the water out of his scarf.

“You hit me really hard back there.”

“Would anything else have stopped you?”

“I guess not.” He pokes his side and instantly regrets it. You could’ve knocked me out and hauled my ass back here. Why didn’t you?”

“I would have to deal with you once you woke up.”

“Oh.” Yeah, that wouldn’t go down well…

“Moreover, I have more respect than that for you.”

“Yet from what I can tell, they’re going to take out Serizawa-san when he’s drunk or out cold. How would that be any different?”

Saitou pauses, rivulets of water running down his arms. “You are our comrade. He is not.”

“You really came to Kyoto for Hijikata-san, didn’t you.”

“Yes.”

“Heh.” Figures. Saitou had paid Serizawa only a perfunctory respect, never anything more.

There’s a voice at the door and he watches Saitou slide it open, reach out to take several bottles, and then the door is shut and they are left alone once again. The bottles are pushed towards him and he raises an eyebrow. “What this?”

Saitou tilts his head. “For that.” He gestures to Shinpachi’s side.

“Really?”

“If you don’t want them…”

He picks one up. Saying no to free sake is not in his book. Not unless it were some sleazy person trying to bribe him. He can’t really picture Saitou being one of that and he finds himself laughing. Sort of. It’s more like choked, loud sounds from leftover frustration as he leans over and his ribs hurt and he waves off Saitou’s perplexed look.

“Don’t ask,” he manages to gasp out, “you wouldn’t understand.”

He not really sure he understands himself, right now.

**.**

Two bottles later, everything hurts less, and he’s talking. Between little snippets of the past to loud complaints, and just sheer laughter, Saitou sits there, nodding, replying a little, but it’s mostly Shinpachi going off. His nerves are still on edge, like he can’t get rid of the events of the previous hour.

“You don’t have to stay here; I’m not going anywhere.” He could use some punching of the floor actually, but he didn’t want to pay for that.

“Is my company unwelcome?”

“Nah, of course not. It’s just—” he waves a hand. “You didn’t have to do all this. You could’ve killed me, even if I’m a comrade. And I still think you could’ve knocked me out, left me here until morning and then we could all go back so I can yell at Hijikata-san.”

“I could have.” Saitou reaches out to steady a bottle that was tipping dangerously. “But that is not my way.”

“Then what…” His voice trails off. “Hey, when did you untie your hair?”

It’s startling when he realises it; it falls still over the right shoulder, but looser and…longer. He notes that it is heavy, almost a little fluffy as it dries, probably because it’s unbrushed. Unlike Hijikata’s hair, which lies flat and smooth no matter how he wore it.

“A few minutes ago; it needs to dry.” Saitou runs his fingers through it. “You should probably do the same.”

Oh, his headband. He pulls that off and water drips into his eyes. “I’m beginning to think you have ulterior motives,” he mutters as he drinks some more, scrunching his headband between his fingers. Though he’s nowhere near drunk, his senses are everywhere, scattering and latching on to things like how the decorations on the walls are a really annoying shade of red, and the only calm thing in this room is Saitou, and how he smells like rain.

“I have none.”

“Yeah, sure.”

There’s a twitch in Saitou’s face. “Very sure.”

“First you hit me, now you’re holding me captive…and you’re getting me to take off my clothes, so what’s next? Are you going to try to seduce me?”

“I assure you I have no intentions of that.”

“Right.”

“Unless you wish to be?”

He sputters. Anyone else but Saitou, he would’ve expected to point a finger at him and say some shit like “I’m messing with you! It was only a joke!”

Saitou is still sitting in seiza, his damp hair is framing his face and somehow, it’s very beautiful. Different from the beauty of him standing in the rain with a sword in his hand, but beautiful nonetheless.

He’s serious.

He’s very serious.

Shinpachi has to put his cup down. “I didn’t take you to be the romantic type.”

“Not all encounters are romantic.”

“…fair enough.” He fiddles with tatami mat under him, running his finger between the cracks. “So, what is this?”

The other looks away.

He waits.

“Call it…proof that we are comrades.”

“Proof?” He’d ask more, but that’s when Saitou leans forward and kisses him, and then sits back on his heels.

It’s like a blink, or an intake of air—there and not there, like he could’ve imagined it, if not for his eyes being open.

“Yes, proof.” Saitou continues as if he hadn’t stopped speaking. “That you can still trust us.” He holds out his hand.

His lips tingle.

He stares at the hand. “I almost can’t believe this.”

Almost.

If it were anyone else but Saitou right now, he would have turned them out of the room. Saitou doesn’t tease, doesn’t even flirt. No, he offered, like he did with himself in other situations.

Sincerely so.

He places his hand in Saitou’s. “Don’t expect me to go easy.”

The smile on the other’s face is a little too calm for his liking. “I cannot imagine that.” And then he’s tugging Shinpachi forward and kissing him again.

This is not unfamiliar territory; he responds easily and wraps his arms around Saitou. His tongue presses to teeth, sliding over until he bumps into Saitou’s tongue. They pull away, and he takes a moment to tuck his hand into Saitou’s hair.

“Never thought I’d be doing this with you.”

“I had no intentions when I accepted the task of making sure you stayed here.”

“Maybe you should’ve done this earlier. I wouldn’t have minded.” He’s joking and he allows Saitou to see it in his eyes.

Saitou only raises an eyebrow. “Then you are saying I should have kissed you while we were in the room with the others?”

“What, no! I meant—” He makes a sound. “Never mind that.”

You kiss well, so I need you to do it again.

It does answer a question he’s been harbouring a long time—if Saitou has ever done this. As their noses press to each other and there are hands on his shoulders, squeezing and kneading, his question is answered. Colour him impressed; he didn’t think Saitou had it in him.

…all right, it’s not he doesn’t think Saitou capable of this. Everyone is capable of it. But there’s actually doing it, or liking it, and by how he pushes at the other and Saitou pushes back, there is a willingness in those actions. When he tugs at a sleeve, it is Saitou who pulls his own arms out of his kimono and juban, and then he tilts his head at the right angle that makes his collarbones more than a little desirable

Maybe that’s how he finds himself on his back, with his head spinning just a little and his muscles all straining as a warmth traces his contours and makes him curl his toes. He returns the favour while he can, because his hands can cover a nice expanse of skin and there is something tantalising about the way Saitou loses the calm and there’s a flush over his face when Shinpachi runs his fingers down his back, and lower.

“I never imagined this,” he manages to say, when one hand is grabbed and his fingers are being treated to something terrible.

Saitou pauses, tongue pressed to his knuckle.

He coughs and looks away. “Never mind…”

It’s too surreal. From the sounds Saitou makes and the sounds he’s also making, to how they rock together and how he’s able to pull the other up against him so that he can run his fingers some more through that hair, he almost can’t believe it. There’s a question of “why” and also “how,” except he doesn’t quite care. It matches. It fits. It feels like he’s still in the rain, with Saitou looking down at him as they move, except it’s a shower of emotions and personal storm of their own. A personal fight. The kind in which he bites on a collarbone and Saitou sucks on his ear, and the thunder is the beat of their hearts as they push themselves over the edges. He falls first, and then drags the other with him, in a series of gasps and impossible tightening so that he’s almost afraid he’s crushed their bones together.

The sound of ragged breathing next to his ear tells him otherwise, as does the tickle of hair on his neck and the hands at his sides.

“Saitou,” he begins.

“Yes?”

“…never mind.”

This is…special. Doesn’t want to move, lest it’s ruined. Something surreal, but also beautiful, about how they just fought and he lost, and yet now, they’re in each other’s arms and equal. His thoughts are a mess and it will take a while to gather them.

Yet, maybe he’s even paid it back a little, when he lifts his head and sees the imprints and scratches he’s left on Saitou’s back. That much makes sense.

Heh.

**.**

He doesn’t yell at either Kondou or Hijikata the next day. Glares a little, even grumbles, but he lets Sano and Heisuke try to explain and console until he grows weary of it and threatens to hit them over the head. Not even Souji’s snide remarks get to him. It’s only a little bit awkward, looking at Saitou. He doesn’t blush, but his gaze does linger as he remembers long dark hair caught in his fingers, and how well the other could kiss.

There’s still the scent of rain in the air too, which doesn’t help.

Shinpachi ends up catching Saitou alone later.

“So.”

“So…?”

He scratches the back of his neck. “I think I got what you meant by ‘proof.’ But you didn’t have to go that far. I’m not even your type, am I?”

Saitou studies him, the way he would study a situation. “It was never about types. It was about…” he stops.

“About…?”

“Respect.” Saitou tucks his scarf more firmly around him. “I wanted to show that whatever happened in regards to Serizawa-san, it did not change anything in my respect for you.”

Shinpachi would ask more, but they both hear Hijikata calling for Saitou, who bows and walks away. 

He watches him depart, scarf fluttering in the wind, stark against the black of kimono.

Respect, huh.

He didn’t fully get it, but it’s not like Saitou is stringing him along just for fun. No, last night had been a pretty serious affair, with outcomes he didn’t expect, yet they were good.

Rain nurtured living things, after all. The world wouldn’t be the same without it. Sometimes, you don’t always listen to it or are aware of it, especially inside a building. However, if you paused, lent your ear, or stood in it…there it would be, falling upon you in this hushed sort of a way. If you cupped your hands, it would accumulate and you can stand there for a long time, holding it.

Like Saitou, in a way. And as ridiculous as the metaphor feels, it fits.

He suddenly laughs; any more thoughts like these, and he’s going to turn into Hijikata, waxing poetic about every little thing about nature.

Heavens help if him if every time it rains, he thinks of Saitou.

**_.end._ **

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> _Hyetal – of or relating to rain or rainfall_  
> 
> 
> ****  
> A/N: /posts this and flees; I have extra special respect for Shinpachi fanfic writers and rpers now.


End file.
